Amazon.com has asked California U.S. District Court judge to dismiss Apple's claim that the online retailer's use of the term "appstore" is a case of false advertising. The request is in response to an Apple lawsuit filed in March 2011 that alleged that that Amazon.com's use of the name "Amazon Appstore" violated its App Store trademark. In November of last year Apple amended the complaint to include allegations that the use of "appstore" amounted to false advertising and would cause consumer confusion.

Amazon argued in its motion filed in U.S. District Court in Oakland last Wednesday that the term has become so generic that it isn't misleading, and cited Apple's own CEOs referring to their competitors' stores as app stores.

"For example, former Apple CEO Steve Jobs touted the superiority of Apple's 'integrated app store' in comparison to what he described as 'the four app stores on Android'," the court filing stated.

Amazon also noted that Apple CEO Tim Cook once talked about "the number of app stores out there" in reference to non-Apple marketplaces.

The false advertising claim does not stand because Apple has not cited any false statements Amazon made about the Amazon Appstore in its advertising, according to Amazon.

"The word 'appstore' is part of the name of Amazon's store; it is not a statement about the nature, characteristics, or qualities of Amazon's store, much less a false one," the filing added.

While it could be argued they are doing this too late, this isn't actually that bad an application of trademarks. Apple created a product called X, Amazon created a competing product called "Amazon X". Usually when consumers see a product created by a company displayed as a compound with another companie's name, they take it a joint venture or a lisenced version or something.. not 'we are taking your product name and appending our brand to it'.

They may have a point though that Apple waited too long and it has become generic.

The generic argument is not the only argument against Apple here. The main argument is "does a potential customer identify the term "app store" just with Apple or as an Apple brand?" To that, I would say no because app store has always been rather generic.

I disagree. Now that it has become common I hear a lot of people saying 'we have always called it that', but I do not think the term was in any wide use, if any use, before the mid 2000s. It feels obvious now, but I think saying it was always generic is a retcon.

This comes from, besides being a consumer, having worked on projects that had that kind of market/functionality, where branding and terminology were discussed in detail, and while the word 'apps' came up, 'App Store' was not a phrase anyone used.